John Seward Johnson II

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Template:Short description Template:Infobox person John Seward Johnson II (April 16, 1930 – March 10, 2020), also known as J. Seward Johnson Jr. and Seward Johnson, was an American artist known for trompe-l'œil painted bronze statues. He was a grandson of Robert Wood Johnson I, the co-founder of Johnson & Johnson, and of Colonel Thomas Melville Dill of Bermuda.

He designed life-size bronze statues that were castings of living people, depicting them engaged in day-to-day activities. A large staff of technicians did the fabrication of the works he designed. Computers and digital technology often were used in the manufacturing process. Sometimes the manufacture was contracted in China. He was the founder of Grounds For Sculpture, a Template:Convert sculpture park and museum located in Hamilton Township, Mercer County, New Jersey.

Early life and education

Johnson was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on April 16, 1930.<ref name="nyt">Template:Cite news</ref> His father was John Seward Johnson I, and his mother was Ruth Dill, the sister of actress Diana Dill, making him a first cousin of actor Michael Douglas. Johnson grew up with five siblings: Mary Lea Johnson Richards, Elaine Johnson, Diana Melville Johnson, Jennifer Underwood Johnson, and James Loring "Jimmy" Johnson. His parents divorced around 1937. His father remarried two years later, producing his only brother, Jimmy Johnson, making him an uncle to film director Jamie Johnson.<ref name="people.com">Template:Cite web</ref>

Johnson attended Forman School for dyslexics.<ref name="Reed" /> Later, he attended the University of Maine, where he majored in poultry husbandry, but did not graduate.<ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:Dead link</ref> Johnson also served four years in the United States Navy during the Korean War.<ref name="Reed">Template:Cite news</ref>

Career

Thataway in the historical lobby of Le Mirador Resort and Spa
Allow Me in Portland, Oregon
Waiting in Sydney, Australia
Unconditional Surrender in Sarasota, Florida
Big Sister in Brisbane, Australia
Newspaper Reader in Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Magic Fountain in New Brunswick, New Jersey

Johnson worked for Johnson & Johnson until 1962, when he was fired by his uncle Robert Wood Johnson II, who had turned the family business into one of the world's largest healthcare corporations.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Johnson maintained a studio in Princeton, New Jersey and later, another at a site in Mercerville, New Jersey that formerly had been used for the New Jersey State Fair.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

His early artistic efforts focused on painting, after which he turned to sculpture in 1968. Examples of his statues include:

Several slightly differing twenty-five-feet-tall-versions have been constructed in styrofoam and aluminum with little detail, painted, and put on display by Johnson in San Diego, California,<ref name="pincus" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Key West, Florida, Snug Harbor in New York, and Sarasota, Florida. Their immensity has drawn crowds of viewers at each site although the view of them from nearby is severely limited, essentially allowing a vista of the legs and up the skirt. The statues have been described as kitsch by one critic.<ref name="pincus" /> Johnson later would dub the statue "Embracing Peace",<ref>Martinez, Alanna, MonumentalTemplate:Sndand ControversialTemplate:Snd’Kissing Sailor’ Sculpture Comes to Times Square, Observer, August 12, 2015</ref> which he treated as a double entendre when spoken.
A proposal to establish a permanent location for a copy on the Sarasota bay front generated a heated controversy about the suitability of the statue to the location, suitability as a military service memorial,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the permanent placement of any statue on that public property, as well as the particular issues of lack of originality, mechanical construction, copyright infringement, and the kitsch allegations about the statue.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In final agreement documents with the purchaser (a private person), Johnson committed the purchase price to cover copyright liability damages in order to have the statue placed. The city was wary of accepting a gift from the purchaser that might result in a financial loss from a possible legal battle that evidenced merit, according to the city attorney.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In October 2014, French feminist group Osez La Feminisme ! petitioned to have a copy of the statue, erected at a World War II memorial in Normandy in September 2014,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> removed and sent back to the United States, criticizing it as "immortali[zing] a sexual assault"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Controversies surrounding the statue still existed in Sarasota at the close of 2021,<ref>Franklin, Kelly, Project Delta Dawn: time to wake up to the facts of Life, Project Delta Dawn, accessed January 26, 2022</ref> when the question of whether to place a sign addressing them was presented to the city commission at a public meeting in Sarasota on December 6.<ref>Sarasota Agenda Item IX.2) Direction Re: Unconditional Surrender Interpretive Signage, Sarasota Granicus video, city of Sarasota, December 6, 2021</ref>
  • Big Sister, just outside the Pig 'N' Whistle pub and Michael's Restaurant at 123 Eagle Street, part of the Celebrating the Familiar series
  • Morris Frank and Buddy (2005) - a statue of the co-founder of The Seeing Eye and the first guide dog for the blind trained in the US stands in the Morristown Green in New Jersey. Frank is shown giving the "forward" command to his dog.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
  • First Ride (2006), a statue of a father helping his young daughter learn to ride a bike, in Carmel, Indiana.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
  • Newspaper Reader (1981), at the entrance to Steinman Park, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The gentleman is looking at three Newspapers - The Lancaster New Era reporting the Apollo 11 Moon landing (July 21, 1969), The Intelligencer Journal reporting Three Mile Island nuclear accident (March 29, 1979) and the paper he is holding, the September 16, 1923 edition, reporting that the Steinman brothers challenged the no-work-on-Sunday blue laws by publishing the Sunday News for the first time.
  • Forever Marilyn (2011), a Template:Convert, 17-ton representation of Marilyn Monroe standing over a gusty subway grate in her appearance in The Seven Year Itch. Until 2012, the statue was located at Pioneer Court in Chicago, where it attracted many visitors and some controversy for its risque features.<ref>Bishoff, Dan, Grounds for Sculpture opens Seward Johnson exhibit that's larger than life, NJ.com for Star-Ledger, May 4, 2014, with images</ref> It was moved to downtown Palm Springs, California in 2012. In July 2013 plans were announced that it would be moved to New Jersey for a 2014 exhibit honoring Johnson at the Grounds For Sculpture.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The statue returned to Palm Springs in 2019 and is now displayed in a central location.

Magic Fountain stands outside The Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The fountain features metallic children playing in the fountain and splashing around.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>

For statues made in a series named, Iconic, by Johnson,<ref name="sewardjohnson.com">Template:Cite web</ref> many of which are very large, a computer program is employed that translates two-dimensional images into statues that are constructed by a machine driven by the program. Often, these subjects are images that already are well known as the works of others, generating heated ethical controversies regarding copyright infringement and derivative works due to substantial similarity issues.

Johnson's works were selected by the United States Information Agency to represent the freedoms of the United States in a public and private partnership enterprise representation sponsored by General Motors and many other US corporations at the World EXPO celebration in Seville, Spain during 1992.<ref name="sewardjohnson.com"/>

Criticism

Johnson's work was labeled as "kitsch" in a 1984 article by an art professor and critic at Princeton University, who explained its rejection as he was commenting on a controversy raging about the work in New Haven, Connecticut.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

His 2003 show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Beyond the Frame: Impressionism Revisited, which presented his statues imitating famous Impressionist paintings, was a success with audiences, but was panned nationally by acknowledged art critics such as Blake Gopnik writing for The Washington Post and drew strong criticismTemplate:Vague from curators at other museums about a prominent museum of fine art presenting an exhibit of his work.<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Philanthropy

Johnson was the chairman and CEO of The Atlantic Foundation, the foundation created by his father, John Seward Johnson I, in 1963. Johnson created the Johnson Atelier Technical Institute of Sculpture, an educational, nonprofit casting and fabrication facility in 1974 as a means of fostering young sculptors' talents, while creating a foundry designed to construct his statues that is so well-equipped and staffed that it is chosen by many renowned sculptors.<ref name="sewardjohnson.com"/> Educational programs at the Atelier ceased in 2004. The Johnson Atelier now operates as a division of The Sculpture Foundation. Johnson continued to make his sculpture at the facility but casting often was performed off premises, with some of his larger works being cast in the People's Republic of China.

He also founded an organization named "The Sculpture Foundation", to promote his works. In 1987, he published Celebrating the Familiar: The Sculpture of J. Seward Johnson, Jr.<ref name="sewardjohnson.com"/>

Under Johnson's direction, The Atlantic Foundation purchased the old New Jersey Fairgrounds in Hamilton, New Jersey and in 1992 founded the Grounds For Sculpture to display work completed at the Johnson Atelier and other outdoor exhibitions. In 2000 park operations were transferred to a new public charity with the same intent that continues to operate the park.<ref name="sewardjohnson.com"/>

He was president of the International Sculpture Center of Hamilton, New Jersey, which publishes a magazine out of offices in Washington, D.C.<ref name="sewardjohnson.com"/>

Johnson also was the president of a large oceanographic research institution in Florida that had been founded by his father. The institution published a science magazine.

Johnson and his wife funded the construction of The Joyce and Seward Johnson Theater for the Theater for the New City, an Off-Broadway theater in New York City.<ref name="sewardjohnson.com"/>

Personal life

Johnson was excluded from his father's will, which left the bulk of his fortune to Barbara Piasecka Johnson, his father's wife and former art curator. He and his siblings sued on grounds that their father was not mentally competent at the time he signed the will. It was settled out of court, and the children were granted about 12% of the fortune.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Johnson was formerly married to Barbara Kline. She often engaged in extramarital affairs in their home, driving Johnson to attempt suicide.<ref name="people.com"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1965, he acknowledged paternity to Jenia Anne "Cookie" Johnson to speed up the divorce process.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Years later, Johnson's family had a legal battle regarding Cookie Johnson's eligibility for a share in the Johnson & Johnson fortune. The court ruled in favor of Cookie.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Johnson later married Joyce Horton, a novelist. They had two children, John Seward Johnson III and actress Cecelia Constance Johnson, who is credited as "India Blake."<ref name="Reed"/>

Johnson died from cancer at his home in Key West, Florida on March 10, 2020, at the age of 89.<ref name="nyt" />

See also

References

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Further reading

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